Buried Secrets (12 page)

The words “and a juicy contributor to same” were not actually spoken, but they hung in the air like a banner. Mr. Neville capitulated abruptly, horse, foot and artillery.

“I’m sure it can be arranged, my lord.” He rose from his chair. “Just let me accompany you to the New Building, and we’ll have a look at the jolly old tomes, shall we?”

An hour later, Cord left the college, two volumes of Mr. Pepys’s diary tucked under his arm. On his way home he stopped at Rose Cottage. Gillian flew out of the house to greet him.

“Oh, Cord,” she said breathlessly as soon as he had dismounted. “Uncle is in
such
a taking. He’s been ranting all day at Aunt Louisa and me. She and I had the greatest difficulty in restraining him from setting out for Cambridge to ‘retrieve the material that it is his right to study.’ I did not tell him of your promise to help. That is, I wasn’t sure..” She gazed at him with a mixture of doubt and hope.

“That I would actually deliver the goods? Well, Madame Ye of Little Faith, here are Volumes One and Two of the infamous diary.” With a flourish, he produced them from his saddlebag and handed them to her. “I believe these are the items purloined yesterday by Sir Henry and subsequently returned by his devoted niece.”

“Yes!
Oh, yes. Uncle Henry will be thrilled to have them back. Come, let us beard him in his den, where he has indeed been sulking like hedgehog with a sore paw.”

Sir Henry was not precisely thrilled. His attitude instead was that of a long-suffering man of letters whose property, of which he had long been deprived, had at last been returned by a just providence. He was, however, interested in how the volumes had come into Lord Cordray’s possession.

“So you see. Uncle,” said Gillian slowly and with great precision, “the books are merely on loan. You may keep them for a while, but they must be returned within a few days.”

“I am quite sure,” added Cord hastily, “that I shall be able to borrow other volumes of your choice to replace, them.”

With this. Sir Henry appeared to be satisfied. Indeed, he seemed most sensible to the debt he owned Lord Cordray. In response to Gillian’s tactful reminder that he had no choice but to assure the volumes’ return to Lord Cordray in a timely manner, he snapped, “Well, of course, I know that. If I were to prevent the return of the volumes, it would put Cord in an untenable position. Do you think I would allow such a thing? Do you think I lack principle, Gillian?”

“When it comes to your studies. Uncle, yes,” replied Gillian, not unkindly. “However,” she added as her uncle opened his mouth, apparently ready to dispute this calumny, “I have every confidence in your integrity.”

“In the meantime. Sir Henry,” interposed Cord heartily, “I must beg your indulgence for a peek at the books myself. Would you be so kind as to let me look over your shoulder for a few moments as you peruse them? I promise, I shall do my best not to intrude, or ask inopportune questions.”

Sir Henry, thoroughly diverted, picked up one of the volumes placed on the desk by Cord. “Ask away, my boy!” he cried. “Like any other academic, I relish the opportunity to answer questions, thus exposing my awesome expertise on any subject under consideration.”

He drew up a chair, placing it next to his own at the desk. In a few moments, two heads, one gray and one dark, bent over one of the volumes. Gillian tiptoed from the room, making her way to the linen room, where she took up the inventory in which she had been absorbed before Cord’s advent on the scene.

This is going to work! she thought exultantly. Bless Cord for his tact. Uncle Henry appeared to be fully reconciled to Cord’s stipulations for Uncle’s continued use of the diary. Thank God. It looked as though her moonlight excursions were a thing of the past. With any luck. Uncle Henry would potter contentedly with the volumes allotted to him. Further, perhaps he would have solved the code and begun on his translation by the time Cord left Wildehaven to take up his responsibilities in London.

A mournful -thread twisted through her. It was obviously inevitable that Cord would eventually succumb to his family’s prodding to propose marriage to the wretched Corisande. Gillian grimaced. She knew she was being unkind, but the young woman in question certainly seemed less than an acceptable mate for Cord. She was obviously interested only in Cord’s title and the material possessions he could provide her. Gillian had nothing but contempt for a female who could so barter herself for a lifetime of ease and status. She, personally, would rather starve in a ditch than marry a man for any other reason beyond a mutual respect and affection. Nor would she expect a man to marry her for any other reason as well.

She was aware that she had not used the word
love
in her reflections. Of course, when she was young she always hoped she would marry for love. Like all girls, it had been her dream to live all one’s life with a man to whom she had given her heart. It was only after her relationship with Kenneth had taken such a tragic turn that her dreams had given way to reality.

She would never marry for any reason—and certainly not for love. She had learned with painful thoroughness that love was a delusion. Certainly, some fortunate persons found happiness in that condition, but she would never be one of them. She had learned to accept that she was incapable of that particular emotion. The knowledge that she was unworthy of love as well was far more difficult to absorb, but she had dealt with it.

No, not incapable of love, precisely. For she loved Uncle Henry and Aunt Louisa. She loved her parents and siblings, too. And they all loved her. It was simply that special love of a woman for the only man in the world for her that she would never attain. Surely, one could get through life without that. She knew many people who had never shared that kind of love—who had never married or conceived children. Here a stab of pain shot through her. The idea of never having a child was the one concept she could never consider without experiencing a sadness so sharp it almost took her breath away.

She turned abruptly to her task, but after a moment her hands stilled. Her thoughts drifted back to Cord’s revelations. What, she wondered, had prompted him to so unburden himself? She had come to think of him as a private man, not given to exchanging the more intimate details of his life with comparative strangers.

Perhaps he had been a victim of the intimacy of their shared adventure. Perhaps he’d merely been thinking out loud in an effort to resolve the situation to his own satisfaction. He no doubt thought her presence of no account. Still, she had come away from the experience with the odd feeling that his confidences, at least in part, stemmed from an expectation of a reciprocating opening of her own budget.

How ludicrous! To be sure, he seemed curious about her, in a casual, amatory manner, but to go such lengths to gain access to her secrets was too ridiculous to be considered.

In short, Gillian, my girl, she cautioned herself, the Earl of Cordray’s secrets, his problems and his motives are best left hidden. The man is a pampered product of the upper class, with nothing better to do with his time than seek dalliance with a female of the lower orders. As such, he is devoutly to be avoided. She picked up her linen list and continued her task, ignoring the treacherous surge of excitement that flickered through her at the thought of what it might be like to respond to the earl’s advances.

Chapter Nine

Life at Rose Cottage assumed a pleasant routine following Cord’s presentation of the Pepys volumes to Sir Henry. The academic’s days were spent almost entirely in his study, where, surrounded by mountains of reference volumes, he perused the arcane symbols scrawled across each page. Most of the reference works contained codes and methods for deciphering them—many crafted centuries ago and employed by kings and military commanders, financial wizards, lovers, and even schoolboys.

To Gillian’s discomfiture, Cord’s visits became more frequent until there was hardly an evening when he was not invited to join the family for dinner. He accepted more often than not, and it had become Cook’s habit to include the earl in her daily dinner preparations. The rainy spell, after its cessation in the first few days of Cord’s rural sojourn, had begun again, with the result that he took to wearing oilskins on the short jaunts to and from the cottage. Still, he usually arrived damp and disheveled, giving Aunt Louisa an opportunity to fuss over him, putting him strongly in mind of his old nurse.

Gillian had noticed a marked change in Cord’s demeanor toward her. Gone—or almost gone—were the polished blandishments and the suggestive glances. He treated her now with the utmost courtesy. Not that he had ever been rude, of course, but he seemed to regard her more as a friend than as a potential conquest. She was, of course pleased by this turn of events. She had no desire to be viewed by the likes of the Earl of Cordray as an object of dalliance. Still, she could not help wonder what had brought about this change. Did he no longer see her as desirable? she wondered somewhat pettishly, and completely irrationally.

She noted with interest Cord’s growing interest in the Pepys Diaries. Young John Smith, the undergraduate from St. John’s College, also made frequent appearances at Rose Cottage, and lively discussions among the three of them on the merits of one possible translation or another became a routine feature in Sir Henry’s study.

“I must admit to some curiosity,” mused Cord one evening in the cottage’s parlor, “about the openhandedness Sir Henry displays toward Smith. One would think Sir Henry would look on the young fellow as a competitor. Your uncle seems determined to capture the prize of making the translation, yet he loses no opportunity to assist Smith in the same goal. He makes all his notes available to Smith and shares any new idea on the subject that occurs to him.” He rose to stir the comfortable fire crackling in the hearth.

The two were alone in the chamber, John Smith having taken his leave hours ago, and Uncle Henry and Aunt Louisa having gone up to bed a few minutes earlier. Widdings had just replenished the teapot before taking himself off for a pre-bedtime nip of something with Mrs. Widdings in the kitchen.

“Yes,” replied Gillian from where she sat, feet tucked under her, sipping her tea in a comfortable armchair. “It is odd, I suppose. However, Uncle Henry has always been generous with his vast fund of literary knowledge. I believe he wishes to see the diary translated, not so much for his own glory, but for the increased information it will provide concerning the Restoration. He would no doubt relish being recognized as the man who broke the code, but he would derive equal satisfaction, I think, just from being partly or wholly responsible for that achievement. As I said before, he loves a challenge.”

“An extraordinary man, your uncle.” Cord smiled. “He .has his quirks, but he is a credit to the world of academia.”

A companionable silence fell, and Cord watched Gillian covertly. She presented an enticing picture, curled in her chair, comfortable as a cat. The firelight played in the mahogany coils of her hair and cast warm highlights on the sculptured planes of her cheeks. Her slim fingers caressed the cup handle as she stared dreamily into the flames.

How, he asked himself for the hundredth time, had this diamond come to be cast among the prosaic assortment of pebbles that populated rural Cambridgeshire? He reflected again on her tale of a dead love. What was his name? Kevin? No, Kenneth something. The man must have been an absolute paragon of manly virtue and/or physical perfection. It simply was not normal for a woman to bury her heart. Was it? He could not imagine any female wearing the willow for him for any length of time should he succumb to an untimely demise, but then he was far from being a paragon of any sort.

As he continued to watch Gillian, an urge swept over him to move to her. To lift her from that cozy chair and run his fingers through those shining tresses until they tumbled about her shoulders, to press the length of his body against hers and to—

He straightened suddenly, aware that her gaze had shifted to him. Her delicate brows rose questioningly, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Ah,” he said, attempting to toss off a light laugh. “I’m afraid I was air-dreaming. Thinking of the diary, you know. I... well, I have been considering,” he added in desperation, “there is something familiar about the ‘pot-hooks’ used by Mr. Pepys in his book.

“Yes,” he continued, on surer ground now, for he was speaking the truth. “The first time I leafed through the pages of one of the volumes I bought to your uncle, I was struck by the notion that I had seen their like somewhere before.”

“Really?” Gillian, too, came upright in her chair, her feet hitting the carpet with a soft thump. “Where? Where could you possibly have seen anything like those odd scrawls?”

 “I don’t know. I’ve been cudgeling my brain. He shook his head. “But, I don’t believe I ever came up with anything like Mr. Pepys’s code. Just looking at them,” he continued musingly, “the symbols seem almost to form pictures.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure, only to my mind they resemble slightly the picture writings of ancient languages.”

Gillian frowned dubiously. “I think Uncle Henry considered that possibility some time ago, but of late, I have not heard him mention the theory.”

“But what about the odd little curves, apparently affixed at random on some of the straight lines?”

Gillian simply stared blankly at Cord. He stood and stretched out his hand.

“Come, I will show you what I mean.”

Gillian rose and, without taking the proffered hand, followed him to Uncle Henry’s study. Here, Cord lit the little branch of candles on the desk, and the light thus produced caressed the two small, leather-bound volumes, lying where Uncle Henry had abandoned them for the day. Cord seated Gillian in the desk chair, then positioned himself above her so that he could point over her shoulder. He opened the first volume.

“See?” His finger ran over the first line on the page. The writing was neat and the lines straight as army ranks. It began close to the thin, red margin line and was clearly legible against the yellowed parchment paper.